At one point of time, you will be exposed to legal research methodology. This subject is important to assist you in doing your research for the Honours paper as well as future researches. Did you know that you have to do more research, reading, analysing and digesting information after graduation? What? Please do not tell me you’re shocked? What do you think people in the working world do? Did you think that when you join a law firm, you have all the assistants to help you? I can only say, in many cases, you wish! That imagination of yours applies after 5 years of opening your own firm or after you’ve been promoted to a more senior level. Even then you still need to read, analyse and digest the information before you present a case in court.

What’s that you say? You don’t want to be a practicing lawyer? No problem, the rule still applies. You still need to prepare reports, white paper, presentations etc.

Let’s get back to earth, shall we, O Young Angkasawan. 😉

Practical Tips for LAW558

My partner, Azira Aziz, and I concluded our LRM as a course last Tuesday. It was a presentation of your proposal before Prof. Dr. Shad Saleem Faruqi and Ms. Siti Hafsyah Idris. All in less than 5 minutes. In a way, our LRM was smooth sailing. We had our topics approved way before anyone else had. Our proposal paper met no objections and our presentation was 5 minutes or so compared to the rest. All on time, on schedule and no hassle.

“Favouritism” you may cry out? No, I do not think so. Here’s our little secret: we consult the lecturers over and over again – from topic and title selection, to proposal draft to presentation.

We began our project during the mid term holidays in February. We met Prof. Dr. Shad to resolve a dilemma: we had to equal practical and viable area of research. Our learned professor resolved the matter by selecting a more feasible area. We (read: Azira) explained thoroughly on what we intended to cover in this research. There and then we got our topics – which was approved. Simple, isn’t it? And the meeting was less than 1/2 hour!

Then it came to the write up of the proposal paper. We divided up the task. After much procrastination from yours truly, we finally completed our paper – one week before the submission date. You might be wondering, “Was it really procrastination?” Well, relatively speaking, it was. 😉 Anyway, we submitted the draft for proofreading to Ms. Hafsyah. Remember, this is a draft. We ratified the problems, ironed out the creases and the following day, which was the submission day, we submitted our proposal. It was, again, accepted.

The last hurdle is actually the presentation of the research proposal.

Here, my copywriting/commercial writing skills and expertise came out. Can you guess how many slides, including the ‘front page’ and the ‘thank you’ slides, we have? All in all, 12 slides only. My partner kept on saying ‘sempoi giler presentation kita!‘ (trans: “our presentation is very simple!”). Also, I slashed the number of words on a slide. In one particular slide, we included diagram! Simple. Not an essay

Reading Law archives

Interested in contributing?

If you're from Malaysia, a law student or even a budding lawyer, simply leave a comment in any of the posts and we will get back to you. Remember to include pertinent details such as your e-mail, please.